Monday, March 5, 2012

Geology Tour Road Redux: Mighty Old Rocks

On Valentine's Day, we packed a lunch and took off for one of our favorite spots, the Geology Tour Road in Joshua Tree National Park. It was a blustery day--cool air, warm sun, and hosts of beautiful clouds passing through.

We pulled over and hiked a short distance to what we think was the Towers of Uncertainty area. There used to be a sign marking it, which we didn't see on this trip. Anyway, it didn't matter--we just enjoyed the boulders and the uncertainty of it all.

Balance Rock, above, is a landmark on the way to Malapai Hill, below. The hill is made mostly of black basalt. It's younger rock than the surrounding monzogranite boulders--maybe two or three million years old as opposed to 85 million years old.

Finally, the local Methuselah of the rock world is Pinto Gneiss ("Nice")--at around 1.7 billion years old, probably the oldest rock in the park. Gneiss is metamorphic rock, formed under great pressure; monzogranite and basalt are igneous rocks, formed from cooled magma. According to the Geo Tour Road brochure, "the alternate banding of light and dark minerals defines a gneiss."

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Desert Dweller--NEW! Poems about the Mojave Desert, including a long piece titled "Sightings: Approaching the Ancient Camel." Photos by Bill Dahl and Julianne Koza. Available at blurb.com

Shared Visions II--Poems about the Eastern Sierras, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Death Valley and Rhyolite, and Joshua Tree National Park. Photos by Bill Dahl. Available at blurb.com

In the Mojave, Pencil Cholla Press, 2011--poems about the Mojave Desert. Photos by Bill Dahl. Available at blurb.com

Shared Visions--poems about the Alabama Hills, Salton Sea, and Little Petroglyph Canyon. Photos by Bill Dahl. Available at blurb.com

A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens, Green Poet Press, 2011 (co-editor)--poetry anthology described as "an accessible and riveting collection" by the Los Angeles Review. Poet Jane Hirshfield says, "A book whose heights, swoops, visions, and versatile multiplicities of flight-path are worthy of the trickster-bird celebrated in its pages." Available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com

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